1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of editing and merging video data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, video editing apparatuses that reproduce, edit, and record video contents in digital formats have come into widespread use.
The Journal of the Television Society, Vol. 50, No. 8 (1996) pp. 26–29 (the society's name is currently “the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers”) discloses a video editing apparatus that includes an editing information storing unit, an editing information generating unit, a video data storing unit, and a video reproduction unit. With this construction, the video editing apparatus reproduces a video content by merging a plurality of video materials (also called “video data pieces” in this specification) that include video data and audio data.
Video materials are granted various copyrights, such as the copyrights for their producers and performers. Therefore, if a video content is produced by editing copyrighted video materials and is broadcasted or recorded onto recording media for the purpose of distribution or sale, the producer of the video content needs to be licensed by the copyright holders to use the video materials or to pay royalty fees for the video materials to the copyright holders.
Against this backdrop, video content producers increasingly wish to estimate the royalty fees for video contents while producing the video contents by editing copyrighted video materials.